Illini Power Rankings: They Grow Up So Fast

Here's a common modern complaint about college basketball that I do not understand: I don't even know who these these guys are anymore.

This grousing, such as it is, seems to be a response to the dramatic increase in roster turnover that has resulted from the NIL/transfer portal/athlete empowerment age. Now, I leave it up to you to decide what moral imperatives you may or may not want to attach to this new era of college basketball--I am on record as saying in the august Bezosian halls of The Washington Post these changes are leading to college hoops being better than it has ever been, but to each their proverbial own--but the notion that somehow this roster turnover has led to an inability to follow the individual players on your individual team is completely absurd.

All you have to do is, you know, watch the games.

Before the 2023-24 season, I did not know who, or what, a Marcus Domask was. But after one month of watching him play basketball for my Illini, I felt like I knew him like a family member--his tendencies, his habits, his personality, his best spots on the floor, his facial expressions at the foul line ... all of it. In four weeks, he went from a human being I knew absolutely nothing about to someone who was an integral part of my personal happiness. There is something about college basketball--watching these kids run around in sleeveless pajamas and shorts, with camera catching every muscle they move from every possible angle--that makes their personalities instantly recognizable and familiar to those of us obsessed with following them. It's an intimate sport! Now, this is, I must grant, a rather odd parasocial relationship, particularly with human beings who are quite literally less than half my age; I wrote here last year about talking to a class in Champaign a few years back and realizing that, oh that's Jaylon Tate over there, he's a college student, I'm a grown adult, I have yelled at my television while watching him play many, many times, this is totally weird. But that parasocial relationship is how sports work. You can't help but get to know these guys. Immediately.

Five weeks ago, I could not pick Keaton Wagler, David Mirkovic, Brandon Lee or Mihailo Petrovic out of a lineup. Now I catch myself waiting in a carpool line, thinking not about my family or Christmas or politics or my health, but Mirkovic has an extremely peculiar way of running back on defense or Petrovic keep the ball closer on this dribble or Is it possible that Lee is our third-best backcourt defender? or When will Wagler be old enough to run for President?

They're part of my life. Already. How could they not be?

If you do not know who these guys are, if you can not keep track of who is on your team, that is not a college basketball problem; that is a you problem.

This is the second installment of my sporadic Illini Power Rankings this year: Here is the first. As always, these rankings are ridiculous, uninformed and written primarily as a nervous tic--think of them almost like me lancing a boil. There may be nothing I think about more than the Illinois men's basketball team. My name is Will Leitch, a contributing editor at New York magazine, a columnist at The Washington Post and for The Athletic, national correspondent for MLB.com and author of seven books, including the novels How Lucky, The Time Has Come and Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride. I also write a free weekly newsletter about parenthood and living through these tumultuous times that you might enjoy: You can find it here. I am (somehow, still) perhaps best known as being the founder of the late sports website Deadspin, though I’d prefer you think of me as “former Daily Illini sports editor” and "forever Mattoon Green Wave."

As long as you will have me, I will be writing these Power Rankings all year. Go Illini.

14. Ty Rodgers (previously: 14).
I don't think we're going to see him play this season, and I still wonder if we'll ever take the court in an Illini jersey again. I still think the team is somehow just better for having him sit on the bench. They could use his athleticism, but I think his chillness--the overriding sense that he is just a Good Dude--contributes more than is necessarily appreciated.The last game he played was that Elite Eight Connecticut loss, and he was particularly lousy that game. I find it telling that he has been sitting on the bench being so supportive for so long that you almost forget that even happened. I love him.

13, 12. AJ Redd and Blake Fagbemi (previously: 13, 12).
Redd has seven points this year, Fagbemi only two, but I'm still putting Fagbemi ahead of him for the simple reason that Brad Underwood, heading into the season, said that Fagbemi was "one of the best athletes I've ever coached." That cannot possibly true. One of the many things I like about Underwood is that while he's intense and a little crazed sometimes, he seems to have a legitimate sense of humor, about himself and the whole bizarre profession he finds himself in. I kind of love that he just says crazy stuff like that sometimes. Blake Fagbemi is the one of the greatest athletes he's ever coached. Luke Goode is going to be 1,500-point scorer. RJ Melendez has the ability to physically transform himself into a demogorgon and rule the underworld for all of eternity. Let Brad cook.

11. Jason Jakstys (previously: 11).
He remains in great shape--Fletch has turned him into 6-foot-10 inches of solid brick it seems--and he didn't look terrified when he had to play three minutes against Texas Tech. But in a world with two Ivisics and Ben Humrichous finally playing like a big huge gawky white dude is supposed to play, there just isn't much for Jakstys to do. We'll find some him Izzo guys to foul at some point, I bet.

10. Mihailo Petrovic (previously: 8).
Every time Petrovic has the ball--and when he's in, Petrovic always seems to have the ball--it's initially very exciting. He has undeniable energy, and you can see, in a league that's a little looser and a little less controlled by maniacal coaches than college basketball is, how much fun it must be to watch him and, probably, play with him. But then you see how loose that handle is, and how many Main Character vibes he has for a guy who is really most useful as a change-of-pace-for-five-minutes-or-so role player, and how even though he's older than most of the players on the team (and honestly looks older than most of the coaching staff), he plays an undisciplined, chaotic style ... and you wonder if, come Big Ten season, if he's even going to see the court at all. Heading into the year, he looked pivotal for a team that didn't seem to have a true point guard. Now I'm not sure he's needed at all ... and maybe more trouble than he's worth. It's early. But I bet he doesn't see another minute until the Southern game in three weeks.

9. Jake Davis (previously: 10)
I trust Jake Davis to hit the corner three. It is his purpose. I do not trust Jake Davis to do anything else, and now that Humrichous is doing what he's doing--and trust me, I have so much to say about Humrichous when we get to him--I don't think there is any need for Davis to do anything else. I love that Peacock had the outdated photo of him, from when he initially came over from Mercer and had his huge mop of red hair everywhere. The ponytail probably makes it easier to run around the court, but it's a lot less fun. Still: Don't forget to yell "Jake Davis!" every time he shoots, it's fun, and don't worry, he can't hear you.

8. Brandon Lee. (previously: 9)
Not for nothing, but he was maybe the best defensive player the Illini had in the Connecticut game, which isn't really saying that much, but then again, if you'd have told me heading into the season that Lee would only play three of the first nine games, and one of them would be Connecticut, and he'd play 11 minutes of that game, I'd have assumed ... well, I would have assumed that Underwood got so disgusted with his team during the Connecticut that he threw the raw freshman out there and played him down the stretch just to show how disgusted he was. Which is of course exactly what happened. Lee looks like a helpful defensive piece who's a little too wild to be trusted on offense right now, and I hope he at least gets enough playing time that he doesn't transfer in the offseason, but I bet he probably does. Kinda getting Sencire Harris vibes here. (Harris is averaging eight points a game for Cincinnati, by the way, and hitting 18.2 percent of his threes. That's actually seven points higher than he hit for West Virginia last year.)

7. Ben Humrichous (previously: 7).
I hope I am not coming across as churlish as saying that I get a little exhausted by constantly being lectured to give Humrichous a break, as if getting frustrated by his inability to hit a 3-pointer--which we had been told he was elite at doing, that was going to be the signature skill that would unlock everything for the Illini, for two years now--was somehow our fault rather than his for, you know, missing so many. This was particularly true when Humrichous was giving you so little elsewhere: Despite being big (which was what was supposed to make him special in the first place, a huge dude who can shoot), he never seemed to be able to play defense or rebound. I still maintain that getting irritated by missed Humrichous 3-pointers is our sacred right as Illini fans, but we certainly can't argue it's not giving us anything else anymore. He has become, improbably, a dirt guy: The one fighting for rebounds, diving for loose balls, clawing for jump balls and (his best skill, I think) keeping up with and guarding guys on a fast break. As a longtime Humrichous skeptic, I cannot deny that he has been invaluable to the Illini over the last two victories. Is it a coincidence that he has taken exactly two shots over 47 total minutes in those two games? I do not think that it is.

6. Zvonimir Ivisic (previously: 6).
It speaks for just how many skilled players this roster has right now that a guy who is showing up on draft boards, who would probably start for every team in the Big Ten that isn't Michigan and Purdue, who is basically the platonic ideal rim protector/3-point shooter that the NBA desperately wants right now ... that guy not only can't crack the starting lineup, I'm not sure he's particularly close to doing so. This isn't a strike against Z--which I'm already calling him, like we're buddies on "Entourage" or something--in any way: I'm very much enjoying the experience. He's inconsistent as advertised, with games in which he seems to have a sort of shrugging "I'm not that into this today, sorry" vibe. And I wish he would back guys down underneath more, like his brother is starting to. But he's a special shot blocker--he gets to shots even when he's sometimes slow to react to them--and he might have the most purely pretty 3-point shot on the team. (I like how he bends down and lifts up to shoot, like he's cranking a pump on a well.) I wish he'd be more regularly focused--there's a certain spaciness to him, and I do wonder if the Michigan and Michigan State guys are gonna push him around. But wow, what a weapon.

5. Tomislav Ivisic (previously: 2)
He didn't have a very good game against Ohio State--even his big clinching 3-pointer barely had the oomph to make it to the rim--and I'm just starting to think that conditioning is going to be a thing for him forever, since he's had that occasional slumped-shoulder, I-just-had-mono hunch for more than a year now. I'm also not sure you have to run the offense through him as much as you did last year, not with David Mirkovic around. But when he has real aggression, like we saw against Tennessee and in the second half against Connecticut, he is a real life tough guy center, in a way his brother isn't. (It's funny how different their games are, isn't it? Two twins, both seven feet tall, and not only do they not look like each other, they don't play like each other either, like, at all.) Ivisic dropping to the fifth spot from the second isn't an indictment of him, though you would like to see the energy level stay up. It's just that he's not quite as invaluable as he was last year. Most of last year, when Ivisic was out, the Illini looked doomed. That is no longer the case. Also, for what it's worth: He seems to very much enjoy having his brother around. That guitar smashing looked fun!

4. Andrej Stojakovic (previously: 3).
My friend Matt Norlander, the fantastic college basketball reporter for CBS Sports, cautioned me when it was announced that Peja's kid was coming to Illinois: "He can't shoot." This continues to be the case--and it continues to be absolutely insane that Peja's kid can't shoot, it's like Shaq's kid ending up being 5-foot-5--but the fit makes a lot more sense now that we've all seen him. Basically, Stojakovic is ... the new TSJ? Obviously, he doesn't have the physicality of Shannon, and he's not as fast, and he's not as destructive on the fast break, and, yes, he doesn't shoot as well. But the role--get to the basket, hard, over and over--is in many ways what we Shannon gave Illinois. (Along with so much more, it's why he's better than Stojakovic. I'm just comparing roles here.) Stojakovic is surprisingly brilliant around the rim, able to score at strange angles that would seem impossible. He needs to be constantly cutting on offensive; he could be like a supercharged Tre White. And defensively, he may be just as good as Shannon, maybe even better; it was him, not Kylan Boswell, who finally slowed down Thornton on Tuesday. Stojakovic is not going to be an All-Big Ten player. I don't think anyone on this roster is going to be. But I think he's got a chance to be beloved here for a long time. I dunno about putting a TSJ-esque blue streak in his hair, though.

3. Kylan Boswell (previously: 1).
After the Connecticut game, I thought, "well, Boswell is going to have to carry us the rest of the year, I guess." But since then? Well, it's sort of funny how the one thing Boswell gave us that night (and for most of the year up to that point) that nobody else did, intense fight and defensive intensity, is what he has lacked since then ... just as everyone else has seemed to pick it up. Boswell is at his best when he's freaking annoying on defense, when he gets into your jersey, when you feel like you can't even breathe; it's what he did to slow down JT Toppin in the second half against Texas Tech. But since that UConn game, he has clearly taken his foot off the gas. He couldn't have stopped Thornton on Tuesday, nobody could have, but he sure didn't make it difficult on him either. It is not a good sign for Boswell's Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year chances--an award he explicitly says he wants--that in the first Big Ten game of the year, Stojakovic did a better job defending the other team's best player than he did. This is coinciding with Boswell looking sort of listless and antsy on offense, including chucking up a ridiculous 3-pointer late against the Buckeyes that made you want to take the ball out of his hands the rest of the game. He's still the leader of this team. But I'm a little bit worried that in the last week, when we've gotten a real sense of what this team can look like when everything's clicking ... he hasn't really been a part of it? He'll get there. I still trust him implicitly. But not everything is currently aligned the way it should be.

2. David Mirkovic (previously: 5).
The real reason Tomi and Kylan have had some trouble getting their groove on this week, I think, is because there are two freshman, out of nowhere, who are doing their jobs better than they are. KJ was the point guard instigator last year, for better or for worse (and it should be noted he still hasn't made his first appearance for the Heat yet, worth keeping an eye on), but the offense ran through Tomislav. This year, it's running through Mirkovic ... and it looks better? Mirkovic has a way of feeling both steady and unpredictable, a guy with a knack for settling things down and setting up the offense despite the sense that you know he wants to do something, at any moment, super crazy. He's such an unconventional player, in every way, from the way he waves his arms (Mirkovic loves to complain demonstratively about a foul and then step back and sort of apologize, like he feels bad about it) to the way he runs (like a duck, or maybe a duck wearing his shorts too tight) to the way he rebounds (like a Rodman who can't jump, if that makes sense). It's possible he's so strange a player that he's just taking everybody by surprise, and they'll all figure him out by February. But I find him absolutely mesmerizing to watch, at all times. And if he can really keep shooting like that? Well, then we're really cooking with gas.

1. Keaton Wagler (previously: 4).
Before the season, Brad Underwood raised eyebrows by saying his incoming freshman, who wasn't even a top 100 recruit, shared multiple attributes with Kasparas Jakučionis and Will Riley, the two Illini picked right next to each other in the first round of the June NBA Draft. Now that I've watched him, I think Underwood understated it. Wagler seems to have the best qualities of both players: The quick-twitch scoring athleticism of Riley and the point-guard handles (and willingness to take the big shot) of Jakučionis. Wagler was supposed to be a shooting guard, and I guess he still is one, but it's sort of remarkable how much he already feels like our point guard, and trusted in a way that Jakučionis never was. Wagler always seems so calm. He was calm when he hit his 3-pointers, he was calm when settling down the offense, he was calm getting back on defense, he was calm start to finish. I think he really is this team's most reliable point guard. We talked about Tomi's clinching 3-pointer earlier, but it was Wagler who created the space to get him open and hit him with the perfect pass. It was the correct basketball play, because that's what Wagler, already, somehow, seems to always do: He always does the right thing. I think he's an NBA player already. How in the world did Bill Self miss out on this guy? He's our best player right now. I would think he'll hit a freshman wall at some point. Or will he be too chill to even notice. He might already be my favorite Illini. It is ridiculous that, with all the riches this team has, we plucked a 3-star recruit who turns out to be in danger of being a one-and-done guy. We are living in blessed times.

Also, fun fact: Wagler was born February 3, 2007, the same night Illinois beat Minnesota 59-49, thanks to 13 points from Rich McBride and 12 from Shaun Pruitt. Feel old yet?

Will Leitch is a columnist for The Athletic, contributing editor at New York Magazine, columnist for The Washington Post, national columnist for MLB, and the founder of the late sports website Deadspin. Subscribe to his free weekly newsletter and buy his novels “How Lucky,” and "The Time Has Come” and Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride from Harper Books.